Another Australian here! We live in a house with a backyard and a hill's hoist.We line dry all our clothes, sheets, towels, etc. We did buy a dryer a few months ago - we have a DD who is 4 months old in cloth nappies so we needed the dryer in case of emergencies! The dryer rarely gets used, maybe once a month and normally for more emergency things, like needing to quickly wash and dry pajamas or something like that.

I have never had any problems with bird droppings or dust on my clothes that have been hung out to dry. I also dont rewash if they get rained on, i consider that a rinse!

When i lived in an apartment in Singapore we always dried our clothes outside. Basically you put you clothes on a big bamboo rod (usually inserting the slevees, pant legs over the rod so they cant fall off) then put that whole thing out the window where it sticks straight out perpendicular to the building. Underware was dried inside or outside, depending on your mood.

Southern Ontario, Canada. I don't line dry outside - I live in an apartment. I used to line dry most things inside, but they take forever to dry in the winter (I don't have the heat turned up much) and they start to smell funny. So right now I use the dryer.

If I ever get a nice place I'm drying everything outside. The clothes last longer and they don't shrink.

Logged

You are only young once. After that you have to think up some other excuse.

Grew up with line drying only, now could not live without my tumble drier.

I *love* the smell of line dried sheets and towels but, of the four places I've most recently lived in, we only line dried in one (two flats ago). Our last flat had no outside space at all (first floor flat above a chip shop!), an earlier one had a roof terrace only accessible by a (very steep) ladder through a sky-light and our current property has a communal garden (with holes in the ground that you can put a rotary drier into) but we only moved in in September so missed the summer.

However, due to my disabilities, I find it very difficult to peg washing out and so it's far easier for me to just pop the wet washing into the dryer, turn a dial and press a button, and hey presto.

I didn't have an outside line in the suburbs and was beyond happy that when I moved to a small town that I had a pole in the ground and a line to the shed. There is nothing better than the smell of line dried clothes.

I just put up a folding external clothes line on Saturday - the old Hills Hoist at Chez Backwater hasn't been fit for use in the whole time I've lived here. I've been using a folding inside clothes line and hangers and the clothes dryer up until now. The new line is on the north side of the house, so full sun all day, but the Hoist is on the south side, and gets lots of shade - silly spot to put it really.

I can't recall any place I've lived where there wasn't an outside line.

The only time I've had a problem with clothes on the line was years ago, when I left some white sheets out when the mulberries were in season. Washing sheets after the flying foxes have pooped mulberry all over them is not fun. Not so many flying foxes down here, so it's not an issue.

The only plants I seem to be allergic to aren't growing locally, so there's no pollen problems. I will avoid using the line if there's fires around. The climate here in winter is not the best for line drying either - sometimes the fog doesn't lift all day - so I imagine the line will get less usage then too.

Houston - In the summer if you hung something outside to dry there is a good chance it would mildew before it dried. There is also the polution and pollen. Air drying outside during ragweed season - it would be kinder to take a belt sander to my skin. I have a clothes horse I use for clothes. Sheets and towel are in the drier.

On PEI - at least in the summer all my relatives hang clothes to dry. They have driers if it is raining and also for the winter.

West Texas - They were in the middle of a 10 year drought when I lived there. It there was any wind -and there is always wind - clothes hung outside would be loaded with the dust. We couldn't even leave our swimsuits outside to dry. They would be a muddy mess. If it rained - it rained mud.

I'm in the US, and I have a washer/dryer combo machine that is kind of on its last legs. We're trying to baby it so we don't have to replace it before we move (which will be in the next couple of years). We had long been out of the habit of tumble drying everything, choosing instead to hang stuff up on hangers over the shower rod.

I hang up just about all of my clothes that way so they don't shrink, except that now my pants are all rather baggy on me so I dry those to make them shrink a little. They do last longer, and end up being less wrinkled (since I'm careful when I hang them up).

But I'm absolutely not willing to dry my clothes outside. I really dislike how line-dried clothing feels, and it seems like it would be too much of a pain. It's one thing to hang up shirts and pants on the hangers they will hang off of in my closet. It's another thing to hang up an entire load of laundry with clothes pins.

I'm also never willing to air dry sheets or towels. They're too big and hold too much water to dry properly in any climate I've ever lived in. We don't like to risk washing or drying them in our combo unit these days, so we take them to the coin-operated machines in my apartment complex.

I also prefer not to use fabric softener. My husband kind of insists on using dryer sheets, but fabric softener can interfere with the absorbency of a lot of things (like towels), and I don't really feel that my clothes are any softer when I use it vs. not.

Where i live you would be silly to use a dryer, those who have one only use it 3 or 4 times a year if you are lucky (only need it when it rains)

I am very lucky and can do all my washing in one day. You wash load A then hang it out, then put load b on, when that is finished you hang it out then get load A off. Everything dries in about 5-10min nearly all year round (winter takes overnight if you put it out close to 4pm, as the temp drops majorly).

Hubby wants a dryer but i have told him we needed a chest freezer (our chriisy pressie yay!) and my 30 year old vacum cleaner replaced first.

I'm also never willing to air dry sheets or towels. They're too big and hold too much water to dry properly in any climate I've ever lived in.

One thing that occurs reading this: Climate issues aside, how fast do US washing machines spin? I know they're different, what with the top loading thing and all, so I wonder if they don't spin as fast as our front-loaders and don't get enough moisture out to make line drying effective.

I can't get my head around the idea of a town that makes drying outside illegal, as someone posted unthread (sorry, can't find it to quote right now). What's the thinking behind that, does anyone know?

I'm also never willing to air dry sheets or towels. They're too big and hold too much water to dry properly in any climate I've ever lived in.

One thing that occurs reading this: Climate issues aside, how fast do US washing machines spin? I know they're different, what with the top loading thing and all, so I wonder if they don't spin as fast as our front-loaders and don't get enough moisture out to make line drying effective.

I can't get my head around the idea of a town that makes drying outside illegal, as someone posted unthread (sorry, can't find it to quote right now). What's the thinking behind that, does anyone know?

i was about to ask the same question - when we remove our wash from the washer - it's "just" wet, not dripping, not full of moisture.

I'm glad i live in a place where the weather is (most of the year) conducive for line drying, there isn't that much pollution, it's not too humid and it's not illegal to dry my clothing.

I live on Awaji island in Japan. The situation is mixed here, but in single-home situations in our area most laundry is hung out. The Japanese do laundry daily, due to smaller washing machine sizes and lack of space for many days of dirty laundry. High humidity also makes it impractical to leave laundry unwashed for long. Housing developments usually don't have any rules about laundry (the only place I can think of that might in my area is Rokurokusou, a VERY ritzy gated community, where celebrities live). Condominiums do! Some don't let you hang out anything, some just don't let you hang out futon (Japanese bedding, not like American futon). For the Japanese lots of different colored bedding hanging off all the balconies looks like poverty Regular laundry hanging out means your house is CLEAN, flaunt that laundry! If someone doesn't have laundry out for 4-5 days, neighbors may ask if you're ok, or assume you're away

I'm also never willing to air dry sheets or towels. They're too big and hold too much water to dry properly in any climate I've ever lived in.

One thing that occurs reading this: Climate issues aside, how fast do US washing machines spin? I know they're different, what with the top loading thing and all, so I wonder if they don't spin as fast as our front-loaders and don't get enough moisture out to make line drying effective.

I can't get my head around the idea of a town that makes drying outside illegal, as someone posted unthread (sorry, can't find it to quote right now). What's the thinking behind that, does anyone know?

I think it's that washing drying looks 'poor'. Or something.

I too wonder if US washing machines leave clothes wetter. Actually, it's my experience of top loading machines that this is definitely the case. When I take clothes out of my (front loading) washing machine, I'd say that they were damp, not wet. When I've been abroad, and used top loading machines, in some cases the clothes have been dripping!